About Me

Ayumi Teraoka is a Postdoctoral Research Scholar with the Weatherhead East Asian Institute’s Japan Research Program at Columbia University, where she studies alliance politics and security issues in the Indo-Pacific. She is also a fellow with the Columbia-Harvard China and the World Program (CWP) from 2024 to 2025 and teaches a course on Japanese Foreign Policy at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).

Dr. Teraoka’s current book project examines the history and interactive effects of the United States’ alliance management efforts and China’s attempts to weaken U.S. alliances in Asia, offering a novel framework to understand how states make policy choices contested by Washington and Beijing. Her research has been supported by the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and the America in the World Consortium. Her writing has appeared in the Journal of Georgetown Asian Affairs, Pacific Affairs, PS: Political Science & Politics, Foreign Policy, and The Japan Times, among others. She holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Security Studies from Princeton University, an M.A. in Asian Studies from Georgetown University, and a B.A. in Law from Keio University. She also previously held positions at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C.